AIIMS conducts its maiden swap kidney transplant

NEW DELHI: To see their husbands back on their feet, two women, Rekha Tyagi and Baljeet Kaur donated their kidneys to each other’s husband through ‘Swap Kidney Transplant’ in AIIMS.

Rekha’s husband Sant Kumar Tyagi was in need of a kidney for the last one year and was looking for a donor. They live in Ghaziabad.

Similarly, a native of Uttarakhand, Baljeet, was also looking for a donor for her husband Jagpal Singh and had been making rounds of AIIMS for the last few months.

The families were introduced to each other by the doctors in AIIMS where they came to know about the ‘Swap Kidney Transplant’ also called Kidney paired donation.

“Kidney paired donation occurs when a living kidney donor is incompatible with the recipient, and hence exchanges kidneys with another donor-recipient pair. Such transplantation enables two incompatible recipients to receive healthy, more compatible kidneys from each other,” said Dr S K Agarwal, Professor and Head of Department of Nephrology in AIIMS.

The families were introduced to each other by the doctors after which they applied for the no objection certificate from the state authorities.

“The transplant surgery was performed on June 2. It took about five to six hours and two operations were conducted simultaneously,” explained Dr Agarwal.

This transplant, Agarwal said, are cost-effective. However, the recipients have to take medicines worth Rs 10,000 – 12,000 per month life long.

This was the first Swap Kidney Transplant performed in AIIMS.

“We were previously planning to take the kidney of my mother, however, the age factor became a barrier. I am lucky to have met Baljeet who agreed to donate her kidney to my husband saving his life,” said Rekha.

Baljeet was also equally happy to have got Rekha who saved her husband’s life by donating her kidney.